Although someone may claim they are "taking a loss", they are not likely losing money on the deal. Otherwise their business would not remain in business for long.
That's only the case if they lose money on
everything, or a good lot of things.
If it's just an isolated case of where they have to make an actual loss on something to keep good will with local customers, then it's not so silly.
It's usual for local suppliers to have to buy stock at a fixed price from the manufacturers, and then it takes some time to sell that stock, that's part of the risk of doing business.
If the manufacturer goes and slashes the price in the meantime before you've sold that stock, it's not in their interest to reimburse the dealer who has already paid for the stock, sometimes months ago. AFAIK, that's how the system works - you buy stock and take's your chances...
So the dealer is left with either trying to sell the remaining stock at the older high price, or match the new overseas low price and take a loss on the remaining stock.
When everyone sees the much cheaper lower price advertised overseas, they might start thinking the local dealers are ripping them off and get a bad impression. In that case it's not uncommon for local dealers to take the loss to keep customers happy in the long run.
This sort of thing is unfortunately not uncommon in the industry.
Dave.